July 2018 | poetry
Plum light unfolded
between the dense brush
of my backyard
the morning
of the day
dad died.
The night before,
he refused
even one mouthful
of lemon meringue pie.
Words were stones
and old stories
were one-sided
casting an umbra
of gray-green.
That’s how I knew.
The outline of morning
broke the uneasy sleep
that formed between the memory
of years of tart pie
and seasons of losing
dad in the thickets
of dementia.
The sunrise’s glamour
that day glittered
off the world
in all its weightiness.
Shallow puddles
from a thundershower spread
across the thirsty dirt.
And the only hunger
that day
inched forward
between the ticks
of the clock.
by Teresa Sutton
Teresa Sutton is a poet and a teacher. She has taught at Marist College for ten years and high school English for 28 years. She lives in Poughkeepsie, NY and has two grown children. Her poems appear in a number of literary journals including Stone Canoe, Fourteen Hills, and Solstice. Her second chapbook, “Ossory Wolves,” was a finalist in the 2014 Bright Hill Press’ Poetry Chapbook Competition. Sutton’s third chapbook, “Breaking Newton’s Laws,” won first place in the Encircle Publication 2017 Chapbook Competition; it was a top-12 finalist in the 2015 Indian Paintbrush Chapbook Competition, a finalist in the 2016 Minerva Rising Chapbook Competition, and earned an honorable mention in the 2015 Concrete Wolf Poetry Chapbook Competition. One of the poems in the collection, “Dementia,” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize. The final poem of the book, “Confiteor 2,” was honored with second prize in the 2018 Luminaire Award for Best Poetry by Alternating Current. The Poet’s Billow recognized her work as a finalist in the 2015 Pangaea Prize and a semi-finalist in the 2014 Atlantis Award. The Cultural Center of Cape Cod recognized her work as a finalist in their 2014 National Poetry Competition. Two of her poems won honorable mention in other poetry competitions: Whispering Prairie Press and California State Poetry Society. Sutton earned her MFA from Solstice Creative Writing Program at Pine Manor College. She has a MA in literature from Western Connecticut State University and a MS in education from SUNY New Paltz. She earned her BA in English from SUNY Albany.
July 2018 | poetry
Growing and rising slowly
to the height above disbelief,
we may be touched by the sky.
Perceiving that words don’t tell
where angels dwell, it will be still.
What we heard, is a presence in itself.
Seven, Ten, Twelve –
let’s count our best blessings
and accept some ordeals or misfortunes.
Can we feel blessed indeed then
with plenty of things not happening to us?
But that’s no relief to lots of creatures far or near!
The swift and skittish starlings are heedless,
free? Well, at least we don’t need to eat worms.
A grasshopper drops by; they’re not in the past only!
And a tiny flower survives the mower.
So, many thanks for today, that may bring more.
No gloom, please; it seems to become wonderfully serene.
In the gleam of a durable sun
and ever-full moon, the swans fly this way.
They can lift their own weights, with those who participate.
by Arno Bohlmeijer
Arno Bohlmeijer holds an MA in English Lit, BA French, and is a bilingual author in English & Dutch. He is winner of the National Charlotte Köhler Prize, finalist for the 2018 Gabo Prize, and finalist for the 2018 Poetry Matters Project. Arno has been published in five countries.
July 2018 | poetry
It must be Spring.
The begonias are vomiting diesel
Again,
Leaf blowers are whining like scapegoats
Condemned to die
Again
In a swirl
Of garbage and leaves,
And I don’t feel like being alive today.
Why must I
Again
Salute the pilfered flag
That just yesterday I glibly waved?
Somewhere a monstrous, moody moon
Lingers like a flashlight in an empty street,
Ready to plunge her sequined syringe
Into my unwitting, smoggy veins.
Somewhere bird watchers
And gardeners
And beekeepers
Swoon like submissive violins.
It must be Spring
Again.
I am choking on the dew.
I am lost in a maze of barbed-wire-wool,
Still cold, lacerated, hemmed in
Again
Like a fiery torment of acid tears
Spilling into a perverse pool
Of my own making,
And I don’t feel like being alive today.
Who are you
To assure me
That life is regenerative?
Somewhere I know that you are right,
But I don’t care. Not now.
I am an oil derrick
Wheezing night and day;
My demise is bound up in my riches,
And I don’t feel like being alive today.
Somewhere it is Fall
And somewhere it is Summer
And somewhere it is Winter
And maybe here it isn’t even Spring:
How quickly, how often the seasons change!
I am sober. I’ve never done a drug.
But the begonias are vomiting diesel
Again
And I don’t feel like being alive today.
by Andy Posner
Andy Posner is a resident of Dedham, Massachusetts. He grew up in Los Angeles and received his Bachelor’s degree in Spanish Language and Culture from California State University, Northridge. He moved to New England in 2007 to pursue an MA in Environmental Studies at Brown University. While there, he founded Capital Good Fund, a nonprofit that provides small personal loans and financial coaching to low-income residents of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Delaware, and Florida.
